Saram Ch.5-9

Self Discipline(修身)

The ultimate destination of Taekwondo training is to control yourself, so its ideology is the self disciplin. Buddha said, “engineers (who build canals and aqueducts) lead the water (wherever they like), fletchers make the arrow straight, carpenters carve the wood; wise people fashion (discipline) themselves”¹⁾ ; Confucius also said “in archery we have something like the way of the superior man. When the archer misses the center of the target, he turns round and seeks for the cause of his failure in himself"”²⁾ ; also Lao tsu said “he who conquers others has physical strength. He who conquers himself is strong.”³⁾ It means buddhism, confucianism and taoism share the self discipline. In addition to that this ideology of self discipline is not only confined within the realm of noble ethics but also it can be the root of concrete happiness or disaster, so Mencius said “There is neither good nor bad fortune which man does not bring upon himself.”⁴⁾ Accordingly “from the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the self discipline of the person the root of everything besides”⁵⁾ since old time.

The main key of this self-discipline can be said to be "To subdue your self and return to propriety"(克己復禮)⁶⁾ Then, what is it to subdue your self? It is verily not to do what you desire to do yet that you ought not do and to do what you dislike to do yet that you ought to do, namely the self-discipline. Then, what is it to return to propriety? It is make it temperate to reveal what you intend to do with expression fit for what others intend to do, namely the harmony.

You should harmonize your training and your life with this ideology of self-discipline. Thus, the outer figure of Taekwondo man's life is his training while his inner living attitude is the self-discipline. It means, it is through the ideology of self-discipline that the entire training gets temperate with the balance of its inside and out and its first and last. And then, the training gets harmony to the life. It is the same meaning as was said, “as the wind does not throw down a rocky mountain, so devil indeed does not overthrow him who lives unmindful of pleasures, well controlled in his senses, moderate in eating, full of farith, and of high vitality”⁷⁾ By contrary the training of the sort that ruin the life cannot last long. So it come to fail after all. This is your training's losing the balance to your life, which is the result from that you, driven by your avarice, know only its terminals without its root .

Therefore, if you keep sincere and temperate be the ideology of self-discipline in training your entire life will be balanced and firm, so that your enemy will disappear before your use of technique, which is the result of your training. In this way you can win him without a fight. Like this, it is the TAEKWONDO to get a victory with no fight, of which the foundation is Ilgiyae. That is to say, “while you use it in momentary performance you can get it only after your steady training of long time in daily life.”(Ch.57) It is grounded upon this that you can get a victory over your opponent with no fight with him. Furthermore, it is TAEKWONDO by itself to prevent a fight with your opponent, which is also verily the Ilgiyae of the big and the small.

In this manner, you can achieve right development of yourself through the self-discipline. The right development is the harmony of the inside and out, and the balance of you and others. Thus you as a man don't stay there yet advance toward a certain objective This is what is meant by the way of Saram(Man). To follow the way of Saram is totally to seek what you intend to do, namely, the activeness. Therefore, “he who acts with vigor along <Do> has will.”⁸⁾

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<footnotes>

1) Dharmapada, 80. 弓工調角 水人調船 材匠調木 智者調身
2) The Doctrine of the Mean, 14-05 子曰 射有似乎君子 失諸正鵠 反求諸其身.
3) Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 33. 勝人者有力, 自勝者强.
4) Mencius, Book II, Part A, 4; 禍福無不自己求之者.
5) The Great Learning, 00-06 自天子以至於庶人 壹是皆以修身爲本.
6) LY1201 顔淵問仁. 子曰, "克己復禮爲仁. 一日克己復禮, 天下歸仁焉.
7) Dharmapada, 8: 觀身不淨 能攝諸根 食知節度 常樂精進 不爲邪動 如風大山.
8) Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 33. 强行者有志.